Procrastination Is Such A Time Waster
Procrastination is a terrible thing. For me it is something that happens as a deadline draws near.
Take for instance the local news magazine that I write and publish. It should have gone to the printer on 1st July, instead I eventually sent it this morning. It’s not that I didn’t know it had to go, I just seemed to manage to talk myself out of doing it.
I was struggling to find enough news to fill the 16 pages and many of the local community groups had closed for the Summer. I could have gone to the town centre and visited local shops in case they had anything for me to write about. This however was not something I wanted to do. If they are not happy to pay to take out an advert and support the print costs of the paper, I am loathe to offer free advertising in the way of an article.
Instead I went out on my motorbike, did housework, watched Netflix and pretty much did everything apart from put the paper together. I couldn’t even write anything else because the guilt of not finishing the paper first would not let me.
Then came the sudden realisation that on Thursday this week, I am going to London. It takes 3 days for the print copy to be available after I send it to the printers. If I didn’t get it there this morning, that would be the end of this month’s edition. Was I ready to admit defeat and stop publishing? No I was not.
Cue much scrabbling and scratching last night as I pulled together anything and everything I could find to fill the pages. A couple of posters and an environmental checklist for helping butterflies helped fill the space. At last as I was ready to go to my 9-5, I managed to send the finished article to the printers.
Why is it that procrastination hits when it is most destructive and ends up sending you into a spiral of guilt before launching you into a panicked frenzy?
